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Title: Charged current neutrino cross section and tau energy loss at ultrahigh energies

Journal Article · · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields
; ; ;  [1]
  1. Departamento de Fisica de Particulas and Instituto Galego de Fisica de Altas Enerxias, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15706, Santiago de Compostela (Spain)

We evaluate both the tau-lepton energy loss produced by photonuclear interactions and the neutrino charged current cross section at ultrahigh energies, relevant to neutrino bounds with Earth-skimming tau neutrinos, using different theoretical and phenomenological models for nucleon and nucleus structure functions. The theoretical uncertainty is estimated by taking different extrapolations of the structure function F{sub 2} to very low values of x, in the low and moderate Q{sup 2} range for the tau-lepton interaction and at high Q{sup 2} for the neutrino-nucleus inelastic cross section. It is at these extremely low values of x where nuclear shadowing and parton saturation effects are unknown and could be stronger than usually considered. For tau and neutrino energies E=10{sup 9} GeV we find uncertainties of a factor 4 for the tau energy loss and of a factor 2 for the charged current neutrino-nucleus cross section.

OSTI ID:
21035675
Journal Information:
Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 77, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.77.013001; (c) 2008 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English